Children 'dead boring' expert says

Children are dead boring says education expert Dr Maureen Sloan of the University of East Anglia's School of Education.

'Many people, especially parents, like to think of young children as lively, creative, engaging and even amusing,' Dr Sloan said. 'In fact, our research has found they are very very tedious and yawningly dead boring beyond all belief.'

Dr Sloan said her research team had spent many hours conversing with children, watching them at play or engaged in a variety of creative tasks.

'All our researchers,' Dr Sloan said, 'either fell asleep on the job or became so numb with boredom and tedium that we had a problem bringing them back to consciousness.'

But a recent longitudinal study of young children carried out by children found that the most deeply boring children in later life become mind numbingly boring education academics.